Eggplant Tagine

The weekend before last, my Granny and I snatched a few Japanese eggplants out of her neighbor's garden when they weren't home. They probably wouldn't have cared, but it was fun pretending to sneak around. The eggplants have been sitting in my fridge ever since...waiting on a recipe to come my way.

That is, until last night when I made this Double Coriander Eggplant Tagine from the latest issue of Vegetarian Times:

Tagine is a traditional Moraccan stew that's slow-cooked for hours in a special pot. The tagine recipes in Veg Times, however, are made in 30 minutes. That's because the slow-simmering part is only necessary to cook the meat found in a traditional tagine.

This dish called for canned tomatoes (I used Granny's home-canned ones), onion, garlic, cumin, coriander, and cilantro. Served over whole wheat couscous, it was spicy and delightful! The only problem — I HATE eggplant skin. And even though I usually peel it off, I didn't this time because I thought it'd look prettier with the skin on.

It's sad when you're more concerned with how your food will look on your blog than how it will taste. I ended up picking all the skin off when I ate it.